


A Real Nightmare!!!

by DixieDale



Category: Clan O'Donnell - Fandom, Hogan's Heroes
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-11-14
Updated: 2019-11-14
Packaged: 2021-01-30 18:43:38
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,675
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21432937
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DixieDale/pseuds/DixieDale
Summary: Takes place after the war.
Kudos: 6





	A Real Nightmare!!!

**Author's Note:**

> Takes place after the war.

Andew was obviously shaken from the nightmare that had awakened him - him AND everyone else in the house - during the night. 

"Fair brought the walls down, you did, Andrew! Coo! Bout shot through the ceiling I did, w'en you started up!" Peter had told him as he and Caeide gently joustled the sweating and trembling man awake.

Even now Andrew was a little pale, looking down at his plate queasily. He swallowed hard and hurriedly took a deep gulp of coffee, then gave a violent shudder in reaction, staring at his cup in sheer disbelief.

"Cream, Andrew. You forgot the cream," Peter cautioned him with a wry glance, handing him the pitcher of heavy cream. "You know better than try and drink Caeide's brew straight up! Never mind putting 'air on your chest; that'll put 'air on your insides as well!"

That was true enough; the O'Donnells tended toward a melt-the-spoon brew, and mere mortals were well advised to take heed and take precautions. Not that it wasn't addictive, it was, but it DID need to be tempered more than a little, at least til you got used to it. Most started off with half cream, half coffee and eventually worked their way to a three-quarter blend. Few ever made it past that point unless they'd been raised on it.

Andrew flushed and quickly added a heavy double-slosh to what was in his cup, and then cautiously took a sip, and sighed. Yeah, that was more like it!

That difficulty resolved, the men started on their breakfast. It wasn't quite light out, so Maude and Marisol were still abovestairs. They kept to a slightly different schedule than Caeide and the two men, Maude because of her years, Marisol because her first chore of the morning was tending the flocks of poultry and those didn't much appreciate being roused up before the dawning.

Caeide had gotten things in order for the first meal of the day, but then had gone to check on a mare she thought was getting ready to foal, and hadn't returned yet. She'd urged them not to wait. 

"I'll get what I want when I get back, no sense in letting your food get cold."

Only the ticking of the clock broke the silence, which was highly unusual. Usually Andrew chattered, 'nattering on' as Peter called it, throughout the morning meal. Peter pretty well counted on that, in fact, considered that burble of constant sound from Andrew as his personal 'alarm clock' to get his mind working for the day ahead. 

Oh, he complained about all the nattering, of course; it was expected of him, after all. But now, the absence was making him uncomfortable, because that meant something was wrong. He didn't like it when something was wrong, particularly with his Andrew. 

{"Probably the remains of that bloody nightmare!"}

"You wanna talk about it, Andrew?" Peter asked, finishing the last of his plate and moving it to one side. He lit a cigarette, inhaling deeply, closing his eyes for a moment at the sheer bliss of the smoke filling his lungs. {"First one of the day! There's nothing like it!"}

Andrew's mouth twitched, probably in discomfort, but somehow Peter had the feeling there was at least some amusement included there too. Though what could be so bloody amusing about a nightmare that had his Andrew yelling the walls down, he couldn't imagine. 

"You know how back in camp, after Mary Jane dumped me, some of the guys were trying to get my spirits up? Saying I'd find a better girl, saying how I needed to play the field before I settled down anyhow? Remember how one of the guys said that HE bet, once the war was over and I got back home, I'd find out Mary Jane had changed her mind, and we got back together, just like we'd planned?

"That's what the dream was about. See, I got back home, and it was like I never left. And Mary Jane was all sweet and cuddly and real happy to see me. See, turns out she'd only sent me that letter cause she didn't want me worrying about her; she figured I had enough to worry about. Didn't want to tell me we had a kid. Even though we hadn't done enough that I thought there COULD have been a kid, well, she and her mom and even MY mom said sometimes it didn't take near as much as you'd think for that to happen. And he LOOKED like me, JUST like me, there was no mistake about that! 

"So, next thing I know, I'm getting married, and working in the drugstore, and we're living in the back room of mom's house. Mary Jane was all for moving up on the top floor of her folk's house, but I put my foot down. No sirree! We were gonna build a house of our own, on the property me and my mom owned. 

"And we did, and it was all real nice, just like I figured it should be. And one day I looked around the table and there were whole BUNCHES of kids, all looking just like me, and Mary Jane was telling me all the things I needed to get done during the day, and what I'd done wrong with what I'd done the day before, and what I needed to maybe get right today. And I was trying to remember all the things I was supposed to do after I got to work, so Mr. Perkins wouldn't be all ticked off like he'd been the day before.

"And then one of the kids asked me "what did you do in the war, daddy?" And I started to tell him about training, and the fighting, and then the camp, about everything we did. I started to tell him about you and LeBeau and Kinch and Olsen and everyone, how great you all had been. But how that it had all been a long time ago, a whole life-time ago.

"Then I got to wondering how you all were, what you'd done with your lives, ya know? 

"And then Mary Jane was telling me Mr. Perkins was on the phone, and I was late, which I shouldn't be, since that was the day we were supposed to sign the papers for me to buy the store and have ME be the boss. Yeah, it was like I had everything I'd ever wanted, everything I'd dreamed about when I was a kid. 

Peter was feeling a little odd, listening to all that, especially since the look on Andrew's face was more than a little odd too. 

Well, HE didn't think that Mary Jane chit was selfless enough to have written that Dear John letter for any such reason, and that certainly hadn't been what Andrew had returned to. 

But regrets? He'd never had Andrew express those before, about that life-not-lived. Made him feel more than a little uneasy, thinking he'd somehow kept Andrew from having all that. Well, no, he knew he hadn't, not really, at least he didn't think so, but still . . .

He hurried to fill the silence, since Andrew had stopped talking and was just frowning down at his empty plate like it had offended him in some way.

"Sounds like a nice enough dream, Andrew, all cozy-like, everything being the way you always wanted. What 'appened after that that made you start the yelling?"

Andrew's head snapped up, aghast, and he looked at Peter in disbelief. 

"But that WAS it, Peter! Don't you get it? I was THERE, doing all that stuff I always figured I'd be doing after the war, and all I wanted to do was run away and hide. No, not that, not hide. I wanted to run away and find YOU. Cause it was all wrong, and I didn't want any of it, I only wanted to find YOU! That's what I was yelling about! 

"Boy, it was awful, you know? Everything I always THOUGHT I wanted, sitting right there at my fingertips, and then figuring out after all that time, when it was too late, I'd given up the one thing I REALLY wanted, the one thing, the one PERSON, I really NEEDED. And it was like I couldn't breathe, and the walls started closing in on me, and all those voices got so shrill they were hurting my ears, and I just had to start screaming!"

"And that's when you and Caeide woke me up! Boy! Talk about being relieved! I don't EVER want to have a nightmare like that again! Something like that could turn a guy's hair pure white, ya know??!"

Caeide had come back from the barn, confident that Tess had at least a few more hours before her time, and paused just inside the door. Peter was standing there, arms tight around Andrew, who had his head buried in Peter's shoulder.

"Did I miss something?" she asked.

"Just Andrew telling me about 'is nightmare, Caeide-luv. A real rough one, seems like," Peter told her, his damp eyes letting her know there was a lot more to it than just that. 

Well, it looked like Peter had things well in hand, because Andrew was purely beaming now, eyes shining and happy once again.

"A real bad one, Caeide! I'm just real glad it was just a dream! Say, how's Tess? Sheesh, it's already light out, and I haven't even STARTED my chores! Gotta go, Peter. See you for mid-morning coffee!" and he was out the door at a run.

"Anything I should know"" Caeide asked cautiously, feeling Peter's arms enfold her, giving her a warm hug of her own. She could feel that chuckle he gave deep in his chest, looked up at him questioningly. 

"Our Andrew, Caeide. Just our Andrew. Sometimes 'e confuses the bloody 'ell out of me; other times . . . Ever think just 'ow lucky we are, the three of us?"

She chuckled, leaning into him as Andrew had done earlier. 

"Every day, Peter, every blessed day!"


End file.
